


A Heap of Broken Images (the digital life remix)

by glim



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 2013 Camelot Remix, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Camelot Remix, Internet, M/M, Photography, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finds a picture online.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Heap of Broken Images (the digital life remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qwerty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Imperfect Picture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/154589) by [qwerty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty). 



Four o'clock in the morning and all Arthur can think about is the way the light slants through his bedroom window minutes after sunrise. He knows if he waits, if he stays awake a few extra hours, he'll see the sun come up through his hotel window, and the thought is cheering for a moment, until he realizes that he'll be able to tell. He'll know that the sunrise in Tokyo is different from sunrise in London, just as he knows that the bed in this hotel room is the wrong shape for his body.

It always happens like this: he's fine for any number of days or weeks and his life in London doesn't feel so far away, no matter where travel or business takes him. Then it comes over him, a swelling in his chest that wakes him from sleep and leaves him with the dull ache of homesickness.

Three weeks have passed this time; no, three weeks and two days, that's how long it took for Arthur to miss a home he rarely gets to spend enough time in. He stares up at the ceiling for ten minutes, wallowing, and closes his eyes to count backwards from a thousand, hoping to trick his mind into relaxation. At six hundred twenty seven his eyes snap open and Arthur sighs. He has an important business meeting in less than four hours now and all he can think about is some elusive notion of home.

He reaches for his phone to reread some old messages, to check his email, to see if the world has somehow changed while he slept.

And then he sees the picture -- some random link from his sister, a snapshot of a London street at sunrise put through a filter to look golden and perfect. The sun lingers on the edge of the horizon, about to creep over it and flood the city with light, and Arthur feels warmth not just for his city, but for this photographer who captured this moment and this place for him.

Arthur feels, somehow, like the picture is a missive to him, an invitation to a past he can't quite recall, to a home he longs for but has never quite achieved. Sleep begins to tug at his senses after a few minutes, but he forces himself to stay awake and click through to the photographer's account.

What he finds isn't extraordinary: more shots of London, a series of pictures documenting a tiny kitten's attempt to knock over the Christmas tree (foiled, apparently), random pictures of everyday life (books and tea and bus passes, all the ephemera of existence) desaturated and somehow made remarkable, and one stray shot of the photographer himself.

The homesickness wells up inside Arthur again, gathering in his chest and flooding through him with unbearable, exhausting intensity. He puts his mobile aside and buries his face in the pillow, feeling as if he's been awake for a thousand years and can do nothing now but sleep.

*

The photos haunt him.

A young man, dark-haired, pale-skinned, blue eyed, caught in a moment of thoughtfulness. A young man with long, slim fingers that hold bus passes and tea cups and paperback books with equal elegance. A young man with a flat in London and a tiny kitten. A young man who feels so familiar to Arthur, uncannily, unsettlingly familiar.

Arthur can't decide if he's more unsettled or comforted by the pictures. He can't erase them from his memory, even if he can erase them from his mobile and his computer, and so he doesn't bother erasing them at all.

*

He calls himself 'emrys.' No capital letters and only a stray song lyric Arthur can't identify as his biography. Typical, Arthur supposes; half of Instagram must be made up of young men like this.

Except, no. No, of course it's not. No young man could be like this one; no other could make Arthur feel as if he's lost half his memories only to find them here, again, scattered and broken and uploaded onto the internet.

Arthur beings to recollect them, in supermarkets and cafes, on street corners and in restaurants; he picks up the threads of memory that Emrys has left for him and puts together another vision of his life. He sees so much more clearly now the gold at the edge of the morning sunlight and the dark grey-blue light that descends over the city in the evening.

When he starts seeing half-glimpses of the man himself, Arthur knows he'll never be able to forget. He'll be on his way to work or out with friends, and a flash of blue eyes or dark, rumpled hair will catch his attention, only to disappear a moment later.

What could he say anyway, if one of the dark-haired, pale-skinned young men he saw on the pavement or in a pub turned out to be the elusive Emrys? "Hello, I discovered your Instagram and now I fear I'm half in love with you" might actually get him arrested.

Arthur discovers the only solution one rainy Saturday morning while he's drinking his coffee, still in his bathrobe and reading glasses. 

He'll start taking his own photographs.

*

He feels ridiculous at first, awkward with his username made up of his initials and a random number to keep himself anonymous. His photographs are ridiculous, too: uncentered shots of his coffee cup with newspaper and reading glasses alongside, the bookshelves in the spare room, the rain splattering the pavement outside his flat.

Arthur follows a few random accounts at first, realizes he has nothing to lose, and follows Emrys. Trying to be unobtrusive, to not like or comment on too many of his photographs, almost feels more strangely obsessive, but Arthur holds himself back nonetheless. He leaves bland comments on a few pictures, likes the photographs that seem the least intimate, and only allows himself a few moments of joy when Emrys follows his account.

His restraint must work because somewhere between not-obsessing over Emrys's photos and attending various business meetings, he finds his own life re-shaped. There is, Arthur sees, an odd beauty in the pictures he takes of his morning paper and his books. That rare gold glow of the morning sun -- he finds he can capture it, too, and he can look at his own photographs when he's far from home and feel the warmth they impart.

*

Maybe he's tired or lonely, but one Sunday night after a weekend with his family, Arthur flicks through his favorite pictures online -- taken by both himself and others -- and stops on the first he'd seen of Emrys. Arthur hits the like button, and leaves a comment before he can stop himself, remarking how he'd always liked that shot, how it felt familiar. Instead of looking back at the picture, he goes to post a few more of his own, images from the weekend, including one of himself that his nephew took after their footie match.

He showers after that, hoping to wash away the fatigue, and comes back to find a new photograph from Emrys, a digital mock-up of a typewritten page:

> I used to live for you, you know. You were everything to me. You defined my world. You went away and I learnt to live without you. And I can't go back to that, living for you like nothing else matters. I've got my own life now.

Heart pounding, Arthur stares at the picture. It's for him; he knows, with absolute certainty though he cannot say why, that it's for him. He could stop here, ignore the picture, treat it like another random image of post-modern dissatisfaction with life and love that riddle the internet, but that uncanny awareness stops him.

> _I don't want you to live for me, I never did. Learn to live with me. Not together, I mean. Just, let me exist in your life._

His photograph is just one of his own scrawled handwriting, a bit shaky from the nervousness that gathers in his stomach. Arthur puts his mobile down, gets a glass of water, and closes his eyes as he drinks. He's ready; he knows now that he's been asleep for a thousand years and that he's ready to wake up. He'll check his mobile again in a moment, and the next snapshot he takes will be of his remembered life.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] A Heap of Broken Images (the digital life remix) by glim](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306249) by [originally reads (originally)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally%20reads)




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